Do Americans support embryo testing for complex traits like IQ?
Americans are surprisingly supportive of embryo testing for traits such as intelligence, according to an article in the leading journal Science by a group of...
He did it. Not clear if he’s sorry
The doctor at the heart of a genetic engineering scandal in China has been released from jail and spoke with The Guardian in an exclusive...
A brief history of California’s eugenics program — which ran from 1909-2013
It is a commonsense view that government spending is generally inefficient compared to spending by private people and businesses. As the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton...
Nature’s mea culpa for promoting eugenics
Earlier this year, the world’s leading science journal, Nature, and its companion journals embarked upon a campaign to purge from their pages discrimination and inequality...
Fertility watchdog wants to overhaul UK laws on embryos
The UK’s fertility regulator is seeking to liberalise techniques for manipulating human embryos in assisted reproduction and research. The Guardian describes its plans as “the...
Australia’s cosmetic surgery industry under attack in the media
The multi-billion dollar cosmetic surgery industry in Australia has come under attack from the media. A series of investigations by The Age, Four Corners and...
Israeli scientists create ‘synthetic’ mouse embryos
Israeli scientists have created the world’s first “synthetic embryos”. They used mouse stem cells to create embryos, nurtured them in an artificial “womb”, and grew...
Can we please define ‘eugenics’ before criticizing it?
Robert Reich, a leading economist and secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, has denounced the “eugenic” policies of Viktor Orban. The Hungarian Prime Minister...
Whatever happened to transhumanism?
In 2004 the prominent political scientist Francis Fukuyama described transhumanism as “the world’s most dangerous idea”. In 2011 transhumanism was featured on the cover of...
Is human germline editing compatible with human dignity?
Human germline editing, whether it is for health reasons or for the more ambitious project of Transhumanism, is intensely controversial. International bioethics agreements ban or...
Another step forward towards artificial gametes
Have scientists moved a step closer to in vitro gametogenesis – creating human embryos from artificial eggs and sperm? In a paper published earlier this...
Is Singapore ready for mass production of eggs and sperm from stem cells?
Scientists have generated artificial lab-grown sperm and eggs from rats and mice, which have gone on to successfully produced healthy offspring, a procedure known as...
